they confift of Fibres, Membranes, Coats, Veins, Arteries, Nerves, and numberless Springs, Tubes, and Pullies, too fine for Imagination itself to conceive; try, in the next Place, whether you can form the least Appearance even of a Guess how infinitely subtle and fine must the Parts of those Fluids be that circulate through these Tubes, as the Blood, the Lympha, and animal Spirits, which, in the largest Animals, are fo exquifitely fine, that no Imagination can explain or conceive. Can any Wisdom, any Power, lefs than infinite, produce or explain fuch wonderful Effects and Appearances as these? Infinite Wisdom is as truly and wonderfully displayed in the finalleft, as in the greatest, Works of the Creation, and nothing less than the fame Wisdom that formed the universal Syftem, could poffibly produce the smallest and most contemptible Being in Nature. I fay then, that all thefe Effects of infinite Wisdom were intended to answer Some End, to ferve fome Purpose, or they were not: They contributed fomething to the Beauty and Harmony of the whole, or they did not: They were either useful and neceffary in their feveral Ranks and Orders, or fuperfluous and ufelefs: Take which Side of the Dilemma you please, and fee what Confequences will unavoidably follow. If you fay they were made for some End, to answer some Purpose, that they contributed to the Beauty and Harmony of the whole, it will neceffarily follow, that they do so ftill, unless you will venture to fay, that the System is altered, that what was once neceffary is not fo now; which would be an abfurd and blafphemous Imputation upon infinite Wisdom. It will therefore follow, that whatever Ufes or Purposes were intended in their Creation, can only be fupplied and answered

by

by still preferving them in being. If they were created by infinite Wisdom, the fame infinite Wisdom will alfo preferve tkem: If you doubt or deny this, you must unavoidably fall into the other Side of the Dilemma, and say that they were not the Effects of infinite Wifdom; that they were not made to serve any End, or anfwer any Purpofe; that they contributed nothing to the Beauty and Harmony of the System; that many of them are not only useless and unneceffary, but noxious and mischievous, and had better either not have been created at all, or immediately ftruck out of the Lift of Beings, to prevent their doing more Mischief: In fhort, that they were a Sort of By-blows, Excrefcencies, or fortuitous Productions, with which infinite Wisdom had no manner of Concern, either in their Formation or Prefervation. Does not fuch a Thought as this strike you with a Kind of religious Horror? Is not the Blafphemy as fhocking to your Piety, as the Nonsense to your Understanding? Yet one of these must be maintained to fupport the other Side of the Question. I will therefore venture to conclude, that whatsoever Creatures infinite Wisdom saw fit to produce in the first Creation, will be preferved by the fame infinite Wisdom so long as the System itself fhall continue, which is as certain a Conclufion, as that the Parts fhall continue as long as the Whole, the Materials fhall fubfift as long as the Fabric; and this not only with regard to the Species, but to all the Individuals of the feveral Species, which, as Religion and Philosophy affure us, were actually existing in their firft Caufe or Parent, when the divine Benediction, to increase and multiply, was pronounced. upon them, and they were declared, by God himself,

to be very good. Whatever Arguments have or may be produced in Vindication of the Wisdom and Goodnefs of God in the Works of the Creation, will (I humbly conceive) more ftrongly conclude for their Immortality: And if fo much as the Shadow of a Reason can be alledged for their Annihilation or utter Extinction of their Being after Death, it will as ftrongly conclude against the Wisdom of their firft Creation. And whether fuch a Conceffion might not have a fatal Influence upon weak and irreligious Minds, deferves well to be confidered, whether they might not from hence be induced to believe, or to hope at leaft, that they might receive the fame Indulgence as the reft of their Fellow-Brutes, and be no more accountable for the Sins of a long Life, the Abuse of nobler Faculties, the Defiance of the higheft Authority, the Contempt of the plaineft Duties, and a Violation of the most reasonable Commands, than the poor Brutes, who have no Sin to answer for, and would never have known either Pain or Sorrow, Suffering or Death, had our firft Parents but continued as innocent as they: What then should hinder their Continuance in being after the Diffolution of their Bodies? Why may not the immaterial Form be difposed of in its proper State, waiting for the Time of the Reftitution of all Things, Acts iii. 21. When the whole fuffering Creation shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God, Rom. viii. 21. The wife Preacher feems to have expreffed his Thoughts very plainly upon this Question, Ecclef. iii. 21. where he mentions the Spirit af a Man, and the Spirit of a Beaft, however different in their Specific Dignity and Qualities, yet both equally immaterial

material and immortal; both returning, after the Diffolution of the Bodies, to their proper State or Center: The Spirit of the Man going upwards, and the Spirit of the Beaft going downwards; that is, the former afcending, the other descending, to their proper Rank or Sphere in the invifible World.-And, after all, where is the Difficulty of comprehending, or the Danger of afferting, this proper Affortment of the several Species of Beings, according to their original State in the Order of Creation? What Need is there of fo much philofophical Refinement and Caution in explaining fo obvious a Question? What poffible Danger can there be in afferting a Truth too plain to be denied, or what Purposes of Religion can be served in concealing or difguifing a certain Truth, in order to establish an uncertain, I had almost faid an impoffible, Conjecture? Tell me ingenuously, Madam, can you hesitate a Moment how to determine upon this Queftion? Some learned Men have ftarted a Difficulty, how these separate Effences, or Brute-Souls, are to be difpofed of after Death. Thus, particularly, the pious, learned, and Right Reverend Author of The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of human Understanding, expreffes his Doubts and Fears, pag. 173, 174. They who hold fenfitive Perception in Brutes to be an Argument of the Immateriality of their Souls, find themselves under a Neceffity of allowing thofe Souls to be naturally immortal likewife, and they are fo embarrassed how to difpofe of those irrational immortal Souls after the Diffolution of their Bodies, and what Sort of Immortality to conceive for them, that they imagine them all to return to the great Soul or Spirit of the World, or, by a Metempfuchofis, to pass into the Bodies of fucceeding Animals, and then, when they have

done

done their Work at the End of the World, they are to be difchared out of Being, and again reduced to their primitive Nothing.-Again-If thofe Souls are once granted to be immaterial, it is utterly inconceivable that they should not naturully have the fame Immortality with thofe that are human; fince we cannot, with any Senfe or Confiftency, diftinguish two different Kinds of Immortality for created Spirits, if the Souls of Brutes be immortal, that cannot, when feparate, be thought to remain altogether in a State of Inactivity or Infenfibility, which communicated Senfe and Activity to Matter, while in Conjunction with it; and, if fo, they must be fenfible of Happiness or Mifery, and, in fome Degree, liable to Rewards and Punishments as eternal as their Souls. He concludes, What heightens the Abfurdity of this Way of Thinking is, that, in imagining the Souls of Brutes to be immaterial, Men muft neceffarily distinguish a great Variety of them, both in Nature and Degree, one Sort for Birds, another for Beafts and another for Fishes; and these must be all fubdivided again into very different Species of immaterial Souls, according to the different Sorts there are under each of these general Heads. Nay, every Fly and Infect must, on this Supposition, have fome Sort of immaterial Soul, even down to the Cheefe-mites; and what is yet more abfurd, is, that there must be an infinite Variety of Immaterialities imagined, to fuit the Rank and Condition of every individual, living, fenfible Creature. What a Rhapfody is here! Can there be a more lively Picture of a puzzled Imagination, terrified with Spectres, and combating with Difficulties of his own creating? If the Premises be juft, the Conclufion must be fo too; they must stand or fall together: If the Evidence be strong for the Immateriality of Brute Souls, as I believe you think it

is